Dora Grynberg (nee Dweirja Serlin), b. 1913, Bialystock, Poland. Immigrated to Australia 1941 .

Although Dora Grynberg never met Sempo Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Kovno, Lithuania, his name is one she will never forget. She and her husband Oscar bought 2 life-saving passports which had been stamped by Sugihara with transit visas for Japan.

In September 1939, when Dora and Oscar had heard what was happening to Jews, they had fled to the tiny town of Sarny in eastern Poland. After this part of Poland was occupied by Russia, the Grynbergs fled again, this time to Vilna, Lithuania. Dora was by this time pregnant, but determined that her child would be born in freedom. The Grynbergs knew they were caught between the Nazis and the Communists and they feared arrest.

"We figured at worst they'd send us to Siberia," says Dora. So they had their own names inserted into the passports and arranged entry permits to Curacao. Eventually they were granted exit papers by the Russian Secret Police and after a harrowing trip via Vladivostok on the Trans-Siberian Railway, the family arrived in Japan. In 1941, they were issued with permits to stay in Kobe, where their son was born.

Because of Sugihara's stamp, three Grynbergs escaped the Holocaust. In 1941 they came to Australia on the last boat which arrived before the bombing of Pearl Harbour.